


And I'll never see him again

by RumRollins (GreyStained)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-04-29 22:39:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14482737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyStained/pseuds/RumRollins
Summary: Brock's evening ride on the subway goes just a bit differently.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from quillofchoice: one (or both) of them is a foreigner and they don't understand each other's language.
> 
> Title comes from a lyric from the song I Fell In Love With A Stranger by Linn Brown

“Excuse me.”

Not something uncommon to hear at the subway station. Brock is tired and only a ten minute walk away from crashing on his couch and eating leftover carbonara, so he doesn’t respond to the body nudging against his or the apology. Until it happens again, a sharp jab at his shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Irritation would flash through him, but the accent is unfamiliar, and that has him turning around. What meets his eyes is a man, long hair pushed back and appearance immaculate, all except for the crease of scar tissue on his chin and his slightly unfocused eyes. The first thing Brock thinks is that this guy has no reason to talk to him, and the second is damn, this dude is built.

“Got a problem?” The defensiveness in his tone isn’t intentional. A lady shuffles past the two of them, making him sway.

“Yes,” the man says, Russian and thick, either ignoring his attitude or missing it entirely. “My English is.... not good. But I need help.” In his giant hands is a subway schedule. Brock can put the pieces together.

“Alright, which line are you lookin’ for?”

Tall Guy’s eyebrows crease in confusion. Brock dumbs it down. “Where do you want to go, guy?”

After pondering, like he hasn’t decided yet, Tall Guy reaches for Brock’s arm, making him squawk in surprise as he’s dragged over to a corner of the station, away from the general flow of traffic and chatter.

“Hey, hey, don’t fucking touch me,” he snaps, yanking his arm out of the man’s gentle, yet strong grip. “Can’t just fuckin’ grab people, Jesus—“

“девяносто шестой улице.”

Brock doesn’t know how to respond to that. The hell does it mean? Now he’s squinting while the guy pulls a notepad out of his black peacoat. He flips through a few pages, then points to something underlined, surrounded by gibberish. ‘96-я улица’.

“This is what I want.” He looks to Brock, expecting an answer that he doesn’t have. Applying context to the situation, Brock looks at the phrase again.

“96th Street? Is that what that says?”

“I.... yes?”

“That’s in Manhattan. You’re in Bronx right now, how the hell did you end up here?”

He’s met with confused silence yet again. Brock sighs, and takes the schedule from the man.

“You’re in the wrong place, see? 96th is down here,” he traces his finger from where they were, Hunt’s Point, to Manhattan, and is acutely aware of the guy leaning over his shoulder to look. “The Green Line’ll get you there. Next one shows up in... 7 minutes.”

More silence. It’s like he’s speaking a different language(ba-dum, tsst).

“ _This_ street?” He makes sure to enunciate each word. “You have to take _this_ train. To get there.” He looks up for confirmation. “Get it?” Something like understanding sparks behind green eyes, and the man nods.

“Yes.” The man takes back the schedule to look it over himself, and the understanding leaves his expression. Brock can tell the guy is getting just as frustrated as him, with how deep his brow is furrowed.

“This one? зеленый?” Brock wants to throw himself on the tracks. He takes the man’s wrist, and guides his finger along the green line to the words ‘E 96th Street’.

“Yeah, zee-loni or however you said it. That one.” The man is damn lucky that he isn’t bad to look at, otherwise Brock would’ve dropped his ass.

“Take me?”

“Take you? What, man, I’ve got places to be,” Brock retorted. Never mind that those places included his couch, his bed.

“Please? It is important.” Maybe it’s because eating leftovers and watching FX movie reruns doesn’t sound all that exciting, or maybe it’s the weird lost puppy look on this guy’s face, but Brock sighs.

“Here, I’ll wait with you for the train. Then you’re on your own. Okay?” The man only seems to really comprehend that last part, judging by his brightening expression, which is good enough. He starts to walk away, then remembers to motion the man along with his shoulder. “C’mon, it’ll show up over here.”

It feels peculiar, having such a giant guy follow him across the station like a duckling, but it’s a deviation from what his evening is usually like. They sit down on a bench in front of the railway, and Brock looks to the man again.

“Hope you can figure out where you’re going afterward.”

“Hm?”

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Jack,” he replies, recognizing the question. “What is your name?”

“M’Brock.”

“Brock. Thank you for helping me.” His name sounds weird coming from Jack’s lips, but not in a bad way. Brock smirks.

“Not a problem. Subways are fuckin’ confusing, I get it.” He doubts Jack understands him.

Five minutes later, the train pulls in, and Brock stands up with Jack, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Alright, man. Good luck. S’96th Street, remember?”

Jack looks to the train and starts to walk toward the entrance, stalling when he notices his new friend isn’t joining him. “You are not coming?”

Brock guesses he is now. Sighing, only slightly exasperated, he walks onto the subway car. It’s a forty-five minute ride, and he can’t figure out why he‘s going through with this, but he reasons it out in his head that the guy wouldn’t know where to get off anyway. As if that was enough justification. They sit down next to each other and Brock leans back in the cheap plastic seat.

“Where’re you from?”

Jack turns his way. “I am from Russia. Novosibirsk.”

“Coulda guessed that. Why are you here?”

Jack doesn’t answer that one immediately. “....I am visiting family,” he finally says, and Brock doesn’t know if he believes it.

The silence isn’t necessarily stiff between them after that, but Brock can’t think of anything to say. He’s starting to reconsider his actions when Jack’s deep voice cuts through again.

“Do you like it here? America?”

Brock suppresses a snort, thinking maybe he just picked up a really shitty spy. “It’s not bad. Food is good, people are busy, just like anywhere else. Why you asking?”

“I may stay here. For some time.”

“F’that’s the case, you’re gonna have to brush up on your English, Jack.”

“Yes.”

The time passes slow, and Jack doesn’t ask many questions after that. Brock tries small talk(“Is it colder here or back in Russia?”) and it produces subpar results, so he goes back to the silence. By now, he knows why he hung around this long. His day to day life’s been growing old, boring, lonely, and whatever weird irrational section of his brain was hoping that this little adventure could spice it up. But now, all it looks like it’ll be doing is killing two hours of his time, round trip.

The automated voice calls out their stop sometime later, and Brock stands up with Jack again without thinking. “You think you’ll be good from here on out?” He asks, but maybe hopes the answer is no.

“I know where I am going now, yes. Thank you, Brock.” Jack puts a hand on his shoulder and smiles warm, genuine, and that makes it all worth it. Brock watches him walk off the car, picking him out easily through the crowd of people before he finally turns out of sight.

He thinks about that smile the entire way back. Wonders if he should’ve said something, then immediately squashes that wonder. But if the guy decides to stay for a while, hey, at least he has a general idea where to look for him.

Brock walks home from the station that night feeling just a bit fuller than usual. He executes his plan of heating up leftovers, watching whatever stale action flick is on TV tonight.

He’ll doze off later to the news, and will be sound asleep through the report that reads: “One man shot in East Harlem: Police Still Searching For Suspect”.


	2. Chimera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The universe isn’t the only thing working against Brock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to continue this!!!! Idk where it’ll end up specifically. Don’t expect consistency in terms of chapter length, I just kinda puke up whatever comes to mind

Whether Brock wants to admit it or not, that encounter left an impact on him. Every day since he’s lingered a little longer at the station, perusing the schedule, reading the posters and adverts scattered across the tiled walls. Not because he gave a damn about what any of it had to say, but because maybe if he waited another minute longer, Jack would show up again. In the beginning, this fantasy was easy to indulge— after all, the guy had mentioned that he’d might stick around for a while, and as big of a city as it was, maybe Brock would be so lucky.

It isn’t until halfway through the second week and more than a few unnecessary hours wasted does Brock come to his senses. He squeezes out of the train with the usual nine to five crowd heading home and looks out into the crowd, something that had been growing into a habit. But no tall Russian guys wander into his line of sight, or at least not the one he’s looking for. There’s despair and defeat felt, sure. But it manifests into frustration quickly enough, as his emotions were known to do.

 _Fine, asshole. Didn’t want you to stick around anyway_ , he thinks loudly, irrationally hoping that Jack, wherever the fuck he was, could hear him and understand him.

That night, he cooks dinner for the first time in eleven days. He cleans up his apartment, he vacuums, like he’s trying to _prove_ something (or trying to keep his mind busy). But when that night, when he’s laying in bed and staring up at the water stain on the ceiling, his thoughts are free to wander.

Maybe it had been a sign, rather than an immediate opportunity. The universe fitting two pieces together to remind him that hey dumbass, you’re alone by choice, and you can change that. And that reminder had come in the form of a Russian guy. Brock didn’t think he had a type, or that the man would’ve fit it, but goddamn. All the right buttons had been hit. Except for the language barrier. But they could work on that.

They _could’ve_ worked on that. _It’s a sign, not an opportunity_.

But if Jack’s passing by had been for nothing more than reigniting a spark inside him, he’d outdone himself. As foolish as he feels, Brock shoves a hand into his briefs, the image of a warm hand and warmer eyes behind his eyelids as he groans out into the dark.

—-

Maybe it’s not a sign as much as it is a cruel fucking joke.

Brock has time to consider this as he’s chewed out by his boss over the phone for abandoning his post. The guy had every right to; after all, a security guard’s job was to guard, not fucking sprint out of the building on a whim. But being stationed on the first floor, having a perfect view of the sidewalk through the glass doors, he had sworn on his bastard father’s life that he had seen him. Same hair and coat and all. Was that grounds for bolting from parade rest, scaring the shit out of everyone on the same floor? Shocker, people freak out if the guy with the gun starts moving with a purpose.

But when he shoved past the glass doors and turned the corner, he saw nothing but meandering pedestrians, and the expectant light flickering in his expression had fallen.

Pulling some excuse out of his ass, something about a possible threat is enough to satisfy his boss, and Brock sets his phone down on the coffee table to flip it the double bird when the dead tone comes through.

Lonely people didn’t hallucinate, right? It was only the crazy ones. The ones who took pills. Brock didn’t take pills. Should he? He’d felt pretty damn fine after leaving the army, better than most folks, and that happened years ago. Did he just repress all that shit until now?

The argument against his insanity grows weaker with the coming days. The next Jack-Sighting is 3 pm on a Saturday when he walks out of the gym. It’s still cool outside, but the air feels good on his skin, almost as good as the feeling of recognition he gets when he looks across the street, sees Jack with a casual cup of fucking coffee. The impulse to sprint across the road is there, eager and tempting, and Brock snatches it up, nearly being clipped by a shitty sedan as he crosses the street in record time. But in that moment where his focus is on avoiding death and not on Jack, the bastard fucking disappears. Brock is left looking like a dumbfuck on the sidewalk, glancing around insistently and subsequently creating a wide berth of people around himself. But it’s enough to spark that fleeting hope in him again, and he goes home that night thrumming with a subtle sort of energy that only jerking off could satiate.

Maybe he is going crazy. But at least he feels something again.

**Author's Note:**

> slap my ass @rumrollins


End file.
